Chapter 62
In contrast to the fight that was currently raging in the middle of Rethink Avenue a few minutes earlier, Haventhought Way was quite tranquil. While most of the houses were complete, a few still required insulation and siding to be put in place, and thus were vacant. This, along with the fact that most of the complete houses were occupied by elderly retirees, (the Statorowskis being the only house on the block consisting of a young family) maintained on overall calm ambience on the second cul-de-sac.
Inside the Statorowski residence, Chuck had retired into the living room of the house, and had taken a seat in his favorite armchair. He had returned home from work around thirty minutes ago, changing out of his black dress suit in exchange for a pair of worn blue jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. As usual, he was greeted by a note on the entry door from Edyta, stating that she had "gone out food shopping and would be back by dinner". Used to the routine, the relatively well built man removed the note, disposed of it in the trash can, and awaited his daughter to return from school.
On this particular day, rather than turning on the television to watch the news, the man had decided to pass the time in a different way. He had retrieved a family photo album from the hall closet, and was currently paging through it, observing the photographs as reclined in his chair.
The album consisted almost entirely of photographs of Chuck's family and was quite thick, a necessity given the fact that Chuck was one of seven children. Furthermore, each of Chuck's siblings had families of three or more children, with Lindsay bring the sole only child of the bunch.
Each year, Lindsay's grandmother, affectionately known as "Baba" to her grandchildren, would host a family barbecue at her house. A family tradition was to capture a photograph of all of her children and grandchildren standing together each year, in an effort to track their progress as they grew and changed appearance throughout the years.
Chuck glanced at these particular photographs with a somber stare; they were arranged in sequence throughout the years, the first of which depicted Lindsay as a baby, sitting on the couch amongst other children. As the years passed by, more children were added into the photograph as they joined the family, with the toddlers beginning to pose standing up behind their younger brothers, sisters and cousins.
As Chuck observed the photographs, he noted that his daughter began to stand out amongst her peers. By age three, it was apparent that Lindsay was already a few inches taller than her other family members; at four, she was a head taller than many of her older male cousins.
At the age of five, the natural smile Lindsay had displayed while having her picture taken had disappeared, and was replaced by a neutral expression. In addition, as the years continued to pass by, Lindsay grew even taller, dwarfing all of her cousins old and young as she stood in the back of the group, her chest and head being visible above her cousins at age nine.
In the last four photographs, taken from a time Lindsay was ten, to last years barbecue, the blonde girl's height was no longer as apparent. In lieu of standing next to her family, she had opted to take a seat in a nearby beach chair, a cooler, or some other fixture readily nearby, crossing her legs as she mustered up a smile for the camera.
Chuck spent a few moments staring at the last few photographs of his daughter, at which point he decided to comment to himself.
"Look at her," said Chuck in a soft voice, "She's embarrassed of it, and hiding it by sitting down when having her picture taken...just like she always did."
At that moment, Chuck was broken from his thoughts by the sound of the front door opening. He glanced out into the foyer to see Lindsay entering the house, her face red from exertion, as she slowly closed the door behind her.
"Hey Scout!" said Chuck enthusiastically, "I thought you'd forgotten where we lived. It's not like you not to come right home, especially on the last day before Christmas break."
Lindsay said nothing as she proceeded to turn around to begin making her way up the stairs, on the way to her bedroom. As she turned, Chuck took notice of her flushed face; he rose up from his chair with concern, and walked towards the stairs. He remained at the bottom, watching his daughter slowly climb the stairs, at which point he called out her full name in a stern manner. This action was rarely taken by Chuck, as he preferred to refer to his daughter by one of several nicknames. He found of it as a proverbial trump card, for conducting serious father-daughter business.
Lindsay promptly froze in place near the top of the steps, and slowly turned around to face her father with a confused expression.
"Who, me?" asked Lindsay, still somewhat bewildered by the events that had taken place outside.
"Yeah, you. Who did you think I was talking to, the lamps?" said Chuck in a playful, yet sarcastic manner, "Have you been running? You know you're not supposed to be running right?"
"I know, and I wasn't Daddy," said Lindsay, "But my hands are tingling a bit, I feel like my pressure is a little high."
At the conclusion of Lindsay's statement, Chuck's face dropped and he appeared to adopt an overall nervous demeanor.
"Go take your medicine, and lie down." said Chuck in a stern manner, "Right now! I'll bring you some cookies and something to drink up in a bit."
Lindsay remained still for a few moments, at which pointed Chuck prodded her to proceed once again.
"Go!" yelled Chuck as he flung his hand upward, signaling Lindsay to continue upstairs.
Lindsay shook her head up and down as she proceed to walk down the second floor mezzanine, on her way to her bedroom. Chuck made his way back into the living room, on his way to the kitchen to fix Lindsay up some orange juice and chocolate chip cookies.
Once upstairs, Lindsay made her way into her room, closing the door behind her as she dropped her purple handbag onto the floor. She quickly walked to her nightstand, and removed a long, thin medication container, (with seven compartments labeled for each day of the week), from the drawer. She then opened the compartment labeled "F", dumped the tablets into her hand, and made her way to the bathroom. She proceeded to throw the pills into her mouth, filled a disposible Dixie cup with cold water, and took a large swig to aid in swallowing the pills.
With a disheartened expression, the wavy-haired blonde re-entered her bedroom and collapsed on to her bed. She buried her face into her pillow, and let out a long drawn out scream, which was severely muffled due to the fabric. After around five seconds, Lindsay lifted herself off of the pillow and proceeded to punch it repeatedly out of frustration, as she growled in an aggressive manner.
Eventually, she became too exhausted to continue and collapsed into a fetal position, placing her hands over her eyes. The usually calm composed girl spent the next few minutes crying her eyes out, sobbing uncontrollably into her hands, completely distraught over the mess she had created.
A few moments passed, after which Lindsay lifted her head up, sniffling slightly as tears continued flowing down her face.
"What have I become," said Lindsay, "I'm no better than she is."
Lindsay coughed, struggling to catch her breath from her uncontrollable tears as she looked toward the ceiling.
"You're probably so disappointed in me," said Lindsay, "You would stand up for yourself, and fight for everyone you cared about, no matter what it takes. They all say I'm just like you in every way, but I'm nowhere near it. I'm just a little puppet, a fucking coward, and that's all I'll ever be!"
Lindsay slammed her fists on her knees as she began sobbing once again. A few minutes passed, at which point the girl managed to calm down slightly. She leaned back onto her headboard, staring forward as tears continued to trickle down her face.
Not long after assuming her position, Lindsay's peripheral vision detected movement from outside her window. In an instant, she stood to her feet, sniffling as she wiped the remaining tears from her face and made her way towards her bedroom window.
Due to to being of a higher elevation than most houses in the neighborhood, and being in a similar position to Jonny's house on Rethink Avenue, Lindsay had a full view of the end of Rethink Avenue, including the Kankers house, as well as the intersection of their cul-de-sac with the cross street. That being the case, she was able to spot Marie and May standing on the corner outside of their house, pacing back and forth nervously. May appeared to be biting her nails, as Marie placed her hand over her mouth, both girls conveying a general feeling of uneasiness. In addition, they periodically lifted their phones up, potentially checking for missed calls, as they pondered what to do about Lee's disappearance.
Without hesitation, Lindsay ran towards her vanity and flung open the top drawer with force. She removed a small two inch speaker, attached to which was a thin wire terminating in a small yet powerful microphone. The apparatus was designed to aid budding ornithologists in listening to distant bird calls; however, Lindsay had secretly purchased it for other purposes.
Lindsay wasted no time and plugged the speaker into the wall. She then cracked open her window, and fed the microphone a few inches out of the window. She then closed the pane in a gentle manner, securing the microphone in it's hanging position outside, and switched on the power to speaker.
The microphone had no problem capturing Marie and Mays entire conversation, which consisted of nervous banter regarding phrases such as "we've got to get Lee back before Mom and Dad get home", "I hope she's okay," and "How are we even gonna find her, she didn't take her phone!"
Lindsay remained in her position, staring blankly out the window at the two girls; listening to their conversation while simultaneously praying to God that Lee was okay.
